Interethnic club for children Toleranta opens in Chisinau

An interethnic club for children called Toleranta opened in Chisinau on March 25. The club opened with the support of the Ukrainian Congress of National Minorities, Jewish Community and Bureau for Interethnic Relations of Moldova. Taking part in the opening festivity were representatives of all national minorities living in Moldova, while children representing various communities, including Jewish, Bulgarian, Russian, Armenian, Gypsy performed an artistic programme. The director of the Euro-Asian Jewish congress, Josef Zissels, author of the idea to implement a project to promote the interethnic tolerance in Ukraine, told the festivity that camps called Springs of Tolerance are organised in Ukraine for the third year. Children from various national communities living in Ukraine and Moldova participate in camps. He noted that Moldova is the first country after Ukraine where such an interethnic club has opened. “Education of tolerance for national minorities is the only possibility to prevent hatred, aggression of a people for another people in future. If God made us so different, that was his wisdom, because it would be boring to live in a uniform world. By promoting tolerance programmes, we do not try to equal the differences between us, but we interest each other, learn to respect and love each other by mentioning this difference,” he added. In turn, the director of the camp Springs of Tolerance, Natalia Baculina, said that the organisation of this club aims to continue the activities in summer camps, where children study history, traditions and culture of national minorities.